Editorial: Colby Needs to Work on Conversation

by Caitlin Rogers

While the College has recently made efforts to create community conversations and administrative frameworks in response to bias incidents, this week’s Civil Discourse Live controversy has shown that the College still has much work to do in addressing its own biases before it can provide adequate support for community conversations and action around racism, bias, and prejudice.

The Civil Discourse Live, scheduled for April 20, would divide students into different “affinity groups” groups, with white students in one group and students of color and international students in another.

Many students were skeptical of this strategy, especially when it was discovered that students of color and international students had received a differently worded invitation from white students, who were referred to as “student leader[s]” and “integral part[s] of campus culture.”

There is a case to be made for the creation of safe spaces on campus to talk about individual experiences; however, it is concerning that this attempt to create discussion first requires the community to be divided.

The College needs to create proactive discussion around these issues, but a systematic categorization and division of students based on race and nationality is not the place to start.

To address student concerns, a Q&A session was held the day after the emails were sent. Discussion facilitators and administrators explained that after the divided conversations happened, the groups would be brought together to discuss their experiences; this point was not apparent in the initial invitations.

In this conversation, administrators were also tasked with refining the Civil Discourse Live to better reflect the needs of the campus, which included opening the conversation up to all students. As of Tuesday night, students had not been notified of what these adjustments would be.

While the College has often attempted to create an environment where the response to incidents of racism, sexism, and homophobia is to gather in community conversation, the insensitive way the Civil Discourse Live was announced shows that the College still has far to go when facilitating conversations around bias incidents.

Thoughtful discussion happens regularly on this campus, but until the College can figure out how to effectively and respectfully organize the community into conversation that then leads to action, Colby will never become the cohesive community we need it to be.